Racial generalizations aside, I can't help but think that Diego Lainez and the rest of his fellow ankle-biters owe the sub-6-foot community an apology for succumbing to every stereotype that haunts the vertically challenged.

After all, if there is one venue that proves Randy Newman wrong in providing short people that all-too-elusive reason to live, it's professional soccer stadiums all over the world...

Some of the most professionally and sexually accomplished futbol'ers on the planet couldn't even kick it with their friends while on line for the big boy rollercoaster. Therefore, while they say that the one-eyed man is king in the land of the blind, I say that the 6'4 yankee is the freak on the pitch of the petite.

Unfortunately, that proclamation rings pretty hollow when one height joke has a legion of Napoleon's cocking their complexes and ready to sick their insecurities on those that intentionally play way, way down to them.

As demeaning as that measuring stick mockery was, you have to act like you've been there before if you're Diego Lainez, and by "there" I mean 3-4 inches below the average male's line of sight. So either fake a jumper in his face, as Matt Miazga clearly sucked as a shooting guard growing up, or go the "sticks and stones may break my bones, but cricking my neck to look you in the eyes will never hurt me" route. If not because shortness is a stature that serves you well in soccer then because getting defensive and jumping up and down in desperation is sure to make you look far worse when getting dunked on.